


Stories of the Second Self: Abracadabra

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [14]
Category: National Guard - Fandom, Urban Fantasy - Fandom, lockdown - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:08:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22503040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: It wasn't the straightest of lines for Paul Appelbaum from Jewish rabbi and mythology professor to a captain in the Ohio National Guard's metaphysical intelligence unit. There was a lot of that going around. Paul musters up as an undercover embed into the 37th Special Troops Battalion alongside other giants, as well as werewolves and angels all tasked with restoring order in an Ohio town and route out what phenomenon drew so much local interest.
Series: Alter Idem [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Abracadabra

They were on the flightline ready to board the C-130H that would take the 37th Special Troops Battalion from Lahm Air National Guard Base, to the LZ some twenty miles outside Cincinnati. Paul Appelbaum had corporal ranks on his Army Combat Uniform, but in truth he was a captain same as Miguel Gonzales pacing before the three supernatural caste of troopers in the Ohio National Guard.

"Alright, listen up!" Gonzales had to compete with the idling engines of the 179th Air Lift plane that was retasked for airborne assault. "Here's the sitrap. We got insurrectionist action outside Cincinnati and inter-caste violence. We're going to drop into the LZ and we're comin' in hot!"

Captain Gonzales's pause was just long enough to prompt the men to sound off, "HOO'AH!"

"Hotel Alphas load in first, and Whiskey Sierra's next. After that, Papa Foxtrots," Gonzales listed off the boarding sequence with the military phoentics for Heavy Assault, Wild Strikers, and Power Flight infantry. "Papa Fox's jump out first! You're going to engage in fire suppression of small arms. You drop grenades when you have to, but when our guys are on the ground you double check your targets and blast radii, Hoo'ah?"

"HOO'AH," all the angel infantry sounded off in unison.

"We don't expect good aim while you're in the air," Gonzales explained, "You just need to keep the fuckers' heads down," and then he addressed the werewolf troopers, "Whiskey Sierras, you drop into the LZ once Papa Fox has cleared the way. You're going to secure the sight and look for combatants in concealed positions."

"HOO'AH!" the werewolves cadence with an extra rasp.

"Hotel Alphas," Gonzales moved on to addressing the giants in the battalion. "You're the hammer. You see heavy fire from covered positions or vehicles you pound that shit down hard."

"HOO'AH!" barratone and base voices called out, Paul among them.

"Let's load the fuck up, 37th!" Gonzales waved them toward the plane.

Twenty giants, each around sixteen times heavier than the average man, pounded boots on the flightline and up the ramp. The slamming of huge boot treads on steel was deafening. The biggest men in the unit took part of the cargo bay marked out as the center of mass for the aircraft and then hooked their cargo parachutes to groove running along the middle of the floor.

Werewolf airborne soldiers filed in next, many standing between giants to fill in the empty space, and the angels boarded last. Unlike the others, angels had no parachutes and didn't need to hook a line to a chute bar. The ramp raised to a closed position after Captain Ortega, himself a werewolf, boarded.

The standard issue for the werewolves, often called Double Whiskeys throughout the military, wasn't unusual, but their kevlar had to be redesigned to be adjustable for two skull shapes and still offer protection. The same was true of their boots. Angels, meanwhile, needed ACU's with an extra slit sown for their wings and much lighter armor. The Papa Foxtrot angels were carrying P-90 machine pistols for shorter range engagements, often from the air.

As for Captain Applebaum and the other nineteen giants, the most went into their kit, which included a reengineered semi-auto twenty millimeter gun with a 5.56 mm minigun under-mount for antipersonnel.

The C-130 climbed to its cruising altitude and then lowered to the drop height. Paul couldn't know if air support had cleared the skies in advance, but the intelligence the Guard was getting pretty much suggested that air supremacy wouldn't be a problem.

Then the inner lighting switched to red. Drop time.

The ramp lowered, and the wind rushing against the hull outside rose to a roar. A buzz sounded, and angel troopers trotted out to jump in pairs. The rest waited for the first comms chatter from the Papa Foxtrots to indicate it was safe to drop, reasonably so at least.

Werewolf Guardsmen jumped next, their chutes opening automatically as they fell far enough for the hook lines to straighten out. They needed time to hit the ground and clear the site, and the plane had to circle around to realign giant drops to the same area.

Then the Heavy Assault men moved to the ramp. Big as each man was, the best advice was one at a time, like a cargo pallet. Ten seconds separated each giant airborne Guardsman's jump, a stepping off really. Paul looked down at the almost-nighttime ground conditions. Wild Strikers were exchanging fire with a sparse spread of aggressors, which wasn't the best news, but Paul knew it could have been much worse. Cool air on the ground meant frigid during the para-drop. However, when one's BSI is as low as a giant's shivering hardly happened.

In the dying light, Paul wasn't a hundred percent sure how close he was to the ground, but cargo chutes meant his knees wouldn't get the jolt that human and werewolf troopers would take.

Once on the ground, Paul hastily unstrapped his chute and unslung his weapon. After that, he ran a check with the unit through a radio under his helmet. "Hotel Alpha Seven on the ground."

"Copy," he heard Gonzales call back, "Pound your ass up to this grove near the highway."

"Copy that, Big Dog," Paul replied.

Cradling his weapon side-to-side, Paul huffed uphill when two of the Whiskey Sierra troopers took up position at his sides. Paul and the other giants were the higher priority assets in the 37th, and Paul himself even more so for his real MOS. Being an airborne trooper was just his cover.

Reaching the top of the hill, Paul took up a prone unsupported position and hit the selector switch for the twenty mike-mike firing mode. "Hotel Alpha Seven in position."

"Solid copy," Gonzales answered.

The Whiskey Sierra men ventured into a dense groove of trees, when Paul noticed a Toyota truck speeding down the road with its lights off. He turned on the night scope of his weapon and sized up the truck. "Hotel Alpha Seven to Big Dog, got a vehicle inbound fast. Lights off, and a gun mounted on the bed, over."

"Copy that," Gonzales called back, "Hold fire and assess until five hundred meters, copy all."

"Assess and hold fire until five hundred, copy," Paul affirmed, and adjusted his focus onto the driven and front passenger.

He could see they were wearing camouflage fatigues, but not the updated digital pattern required by the Pentagon. The gun extending over the front of the cap was a .50 caliber machine gun, making Paul think they had either looted a depot or bought it on the black market after the national government collapsed. The machine was swiveling toward where the werewolf troopers were.

"Hotel Alpha Seven to Big Dog," Paul called out, "Truck's loaded with bad ombres and they're lookin' for trouble."

"Green light to engage," Gonzales replied with permission, "I say again, green light to engage. Light 'em up!"

"Roger," Paul replied, and squeezed the trigger.

Another giant positioned on the other side of the road from a position of heavy plant growth cover also fired. The machine gun on the truck fired wildly, making Paul trade off another twenty mil round that punched into the grill. An unhealthy grinding noise and swerving told Paul that the truck would fly off the road in an ugly way beforehand. His first shot turned the passenger into a red splash within a shattered left side of the cab. The truck tumbled some hundred meters before stopping, and the Para Foxtrot troopers cruised overhead to assess the results.

They were done, of that Paul was sure. Then he got another call from Gonzales, who knew in general that Paul's presence had a second purpose. "Big Dog to Hotel Alpha Seven, we got something. You're up."

"Roger," Paul replied, and stood up with the two werewolves still at his side, "We're on our way."

Paul's journey to the National Guard wasn't the most predictable trajectory imaginable. He'd studied esoteric traditions at Cincinnati University, and theology at Hebrew Union College. He went on to teach at CU, until his growing height went from beyond noticeable to incompatible with campus and indeed city architecture.

Yet, the recruiters who turned up, seemed more interested in his academic bonafides than his size. When magic sprang up among insurrectionists the Guard needed someone who could brief commanders on how best to prepare their units, and possibly devise countermeasures. Paul had only started toying with magic, and hadn't come far along when conditions throughout Ohio worsened.

Though, when he closed in on the tree that stood out from the rest, Paul could sense his future would change. Throughout the night he was left on his own with a perimeter set around the grove. Paul set about inventorying the various offerings people had left around the tree. By morning, the sunlight broke through, and then Paul saw something else in the tree with daylight as its backdrop. It looked like an organ of a person or animal, with the branches resembling blood vessels throughout.

"Power is yours," Paul heard whispered through the branches when a light breeze blew through the leaves.

"What?" Paul hadn't quite caught it, and figured one of the troopers was messing with him.

"All power within is yours," came from the tree again, "For you will know what is right. What must be done."

In his mind, Paul saw the Tree of Life from the Kabbalah. its ten circles interconnected by 22 paths. At that moment, Paul felt a surge within him, and before realizing it, Paul raised his hand and conjured a blue energy which flicked and crackled like fire.

"Abracadabra," Paul caught himself muttering, "I create as I speak."

The breeze died down, and the tree's autumn colors, while still red, weren't so intense as before. Whatever power others sense in this tree, now belonged to Paul Appelbaum.

"Intel command's going to lose their shit," Paul said to himself, though he himself worried less about the fate of things, nodding as he said, "We'll be alright."


End file.
